


the walls of my castle are broken

by framboise



Series: A Westerosi Halloween [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Brooding, F/M, First Time, Modern Era, Romance, Vampire Turning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-17 21:58:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12374955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/framboise/pseuds/framboise
Summary: He has two rules: never to taste human blood again, and not to interfere in the world of men.He breaks them both for her.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a series of Halloween-themed multipairing stories.
> 
> Also, if you want visuals for this fic I made a graphic [here](https://framboise-fics.tumblr.com/post/166597227822/he-had-wanted-to-be-a-king-once-and-had-listened)

 

 

He had wanted to be a king once, and had listened to a witch who said she could make him so, only to be turned into something other than a man. And a king needed to be a man; he couldn’t be a half-thing like Stannis was, a creature of the shadows, a deathless thing that might live forever.

Since then he has watched centuries of kings, and queens, and rulers. He has watched them and found them wanting. Yet he cannot intervene because of duty; the duty he gave himself after waking in a stupor from his first and only massacre, surrounded by the lifeless bodies of dozens of innocent souls, a mouth full of blood and a belly fizzing with fire and power. His duty is to never kill again, to feed only on animals; to prevent any others of his kind from killing. His duty is not to meddle in the world of men, no matter how objectionable their actions.

 _What is duty but a burden_ , one of his brothers had spat out during an argument. He forgets which brother spoke, an unfathomable thing to forget, but he has lived so long. Will he one day forget them all? Forget watching his parents drown in the bay, or the feeling of Proudwing’s feathers under his fingertips, forget what it felt like to have a heart that beat its own blood?

The current king is cruel, but not any crueller than Stannis has seen before. The centuries keep spooling onwards, the same cruel men repeat, the same injustices and tragedies. His duty means he often lurks in the capital city because that is where others of his kind come to prowl for blood and power, and thus he has watched this Joffrey, this boy king, playing with the lives of others like he believes he is a god and they are only ants.

Sometimes Stannis picks other people to watch, peripheral figures at court or parliament or the inner circle, even though he should only be focusing on other shadow creatures. He reasons that it is good to care about humans, to pick a handful to feel emotions for – sadness, fear, anger, _longing_ – for otherwise they might soon become the food that others of his kind believe they only are.

Or perhaps he lies to himself and he is only weak, his eyes caught and held by beautiful things – the colour of a woman’s hair, a young man’s sad eyes, the valiant attempts by a father to save his children, the hope of a woman waiting for her husband to return. Human foibles, emotions, have become beautiful to him now that he is not one of them.

He should not be as weak as a man, for he is not one. He should not be weak, but he is.

And thus, the girl. And thus, his months of watching, lurking.

She is beautiful, as others have been over the centuries, she is kind and naïve and her heart flutters quickly with the impatience of youth. She is all alone, her family gone, her friends dead, and the vultures have been circling. He can smell her tears when she walks by him in the street, can see the imprints of bruises beam out from underneath her clothes, hear the shortness of her fearful breath.

Her eyes are sad like many others have been, her voice is sweet like many he has heard before. Her blood, her family, is old but not the oldest. She is nothing, inconsequential, a flicker in his eye. She is not special, there is nothing about her that would justify him giving up his duty, getting _involved_.

And yet, is he not now walking down a darkened alleyway towards a familiar body bleeding on the ground; a body with a puncture from a gun and wounds from the fists and feet of men. Is he not now approaching _her_ ; the colour of her hair like flame, her eyes glinting wet and desperate under the streetlights.

They have spoken once before, he and she. She had noticed him and approached him in the art gallery where he had been following her surreptitiously.

 _I’ve seen you around King’s Landing_ , she had said, with a shy smile, and he had been caught in her eyes, like they were a trap made only for him, a ridiculous thought.

 _I’m Sansa_ , she had said and held out her hand.

 _Stannis_ , he had offered, shaking her hand and wondering if she noticed that his skin was so very cold.

Then he had done something truly irrational, he had let himself be taken in by her kindness, he had spent the afternoon with her talking about the paintings, and speaking little about their own lives, though her body spoke for her in that – her pain, her loneliness.

He stole an afternoon of her life, and swore when he had left her, when she had reached forward to hug him, the first time someone had gotten that close in centuries, that this would be all he stole. One afternoon of fallibility, a few hours of peace standing by her side listening to her heart beat, feeling the warmth of her body like a cloak which he brushed against.

The king has ordered her hurt and hurt she is. She is choking on her own blood. Her heart is fluttering valiantly but it will stop soon, her body will go cold. And then he will find someone new to watch and worry over, someone else to long for.

He bends down, the knees of his trousers soak up her blood. She is looking at him, she recognises him. Her mouth is trying to speak – to ask for help? To say his name?

They stare at one another.

 _Sansa_ , he says suddenly, thinking back on the one memory he has tried so hard to forget, and the question that the witch asked him so very long ago.

 _Sansa, should you like the chance to live forever?_ he says, to the dying girl in front of him. _  
_

He lets his other teeth drop, lets his eyes glow, lets her see him for the monster he is. Her heart does not stutter – is she not afraid, or is there too little blood left to make her fear known?

 _Yes_ , a sigh burbled out of her mouth. _Yes_ , she says again, grits out fiercely.

It has been a millennia since the first and last time he tasted human blood. He will have a thousand years again to repent for this neglect of his duty.

Perhaps, he thinks, fancifully, weakly, humanly, they will not be a thousand years spent alone; as he drinks on her, as he drains her, as he holds out a bloodied wrist for her to suck, as she gulps down his own tainted blood.

Wishes and hopes are human things, he thinks; as he carries her body towards his home, sensing the spark and shift of her transformation in his arms, and hears her first gasp of her next life; as she opens her eyes and looks up at him, and smiles.

He is no longer a man, he knows, but he is weak like one, still.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope some of you notice how casually I slipped in that obligatory Stannis/Sansa carrying scene ;)
> 
> Also, I imagine Sansa quickly shows Stannis how to be a somewhat happier vampire, and to stop lurking about so much, and persuades him (eventually) to take a holiday...


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can blame 'A Discovery of Witches' for getting me back in the vampire mood.

 

 

Newly turned vampires have quicksilver moods and thrum with hunger. She is very proper, is Sansa, her courtesies and good manners have followed her through from her human life, but not even her good breeding can overcome blood lust and the tremble of energy flaring inside of her.

_I want to run and run and never stop_ , she whispers one of those first nights, as he sits in the armchair next to her bed where she lies wriggling under the covers. _I know I can’t_ , she says, apologetically, _I understand that I’m dangerous_. Her eyes flash in the dark, her breath - breath that she no longer needs to live - gusts out.

_But you don’t need to do this_ , she adds a little later, _you don’t have to sit by my bed, or babysit me, you can go back to King’s Landing and leave me here_.

_Out of the question_ , he replies, arms holding tight to the armrests.

_I’ve ruined things for you_ , she says, and he can smell her tears, hear the hitch of her breath again.

Emotions are closer to the surface in these first few weeks, he has been audience already to giddy laughing fits, howls of rage, crying jags and sullen frowns.

He is trying not to find it strangely charming, fascinating, being party to the eruption of her inner self, he is trying to think of her as he should, as his dependent, his responsibility.

He is trying not to be mesmerised by the way she walks across a room, turns pages of a book she quickly flings aside, stares out of the window at the grounds with tender hope.

He doesn’t know what to do about her tears, doesn’t remember what he did when his younger brother cried, and has no memory of crying himself. _Are you hungry?_ he asks instead.

_Always_ , she says mournfully, her body twitching, one pale foot jerking free of the covers.

The first day of her turning was the only time he had to pin her down, to hold her limbs tight lest she get up and race outside and kill someone. It was the closest he had been to another person - human or vampire - in centuries and the touch of her, her wrists in his fists, her thighs under his knees, still lingers shamefully in his body and his thoughts.

When he comes back into her room, the side lamp has been switched on and she sits up in bed, hands twisting nervously, his old pyjama top buttoned right to the top. He passes her the cup of pig’s blood and turns his back, fights the urge to let his own fangs drop at the scent of blood in the air, at the sound of her throat swallowing, at the sense of her there behind him, her body warming.

At his age, he only needs to drink once a month.

At his age, his control should be absolute.

_And now that you’ve saved her_ , he heard a voice in his head say that first night as he lay her down on the bed in the room at his windswept estate in Storm’s End, far enough away from King’s Landing that she might not be recognised, _now that you’ve decided to tie her life to yours for eternity, what will you do with her?_

Should he call her into his office and ask her her plans, as if he is her teacher or guardian? Does she know how terrifying it is to have eternity before her?

Of course not, she’s only just been reborn.

_Thank you_ , she says, her voice gummy with the blood, and he turns to see her cheeks flushed pink and her lips ruby red as she holds out the empty cup.

_Thank you_ , she says again, with feeling, as he leaves, flees, through the door, and his hand clenches around the cup.

He has damned her to be what she is, what he is, she should not thank him.

 

*

 

It takes him five years to give in, to grasp her by the nape of her neck and kiss her.

A lesser man, a lesser vampire, would have given in within a week, a month, but he is nothing if not resolute, repressed, she thinks, as his bruising lips work against hers, as he mutters something fraught and desperate while hoisting her up by her hips and pressing her into the wall, grinding against her.

Perhaps not repressed, she corrects later, in the aftermath, her body slick with sweat, her thighs aching and rubbed raw by his stubble, her insides pleasantly sore.

_If you apologise, I'll kill you_ , she says mildly, lying naked over the rucked-up sheets, her breath still short - he tells her it will take ten years or more before her body realises that she does not have to breathe, ten years until she can sit as still as him in a room, with no movement to betray she might be animate.

She turns to see him watching her, sitting up against the pillow, a mournful glint in his eyes that melts away as she shifts and his gaze gets caught by the curve of her breast, one of his hands rising without a thought to palm it.

She is pretty sure that it has been centuries since he slept with a woman, unfair then, she thinks, as he pulls her under him, as he sets his cock to her cunt and thrusts with devastating aim, that he is so very good at this.

She loves him for not giving in all those years, for the way he'd clench his jaw, his fists, when she squeezed past him wearing silken dresses, when she walked through the house naked from the shower to her wardrobe, when she danced in the moonlight at the beach on their trip to Essos, when she kissed him on the cheek in thanks for some small errand, when she smoothed out the lapels of his tuxedo before a masked ball she begged him to take her to.

It was right for him to wait, even if it drove her mad, even if she daydreamed about tying him up and having her way with him. She would not have been ready for him, nor he for her, she would still be that young woman who was taken advantage of by the men who hurt her, and he would have still been bowed down by his guilt.

Stannis has never hurt her, not since her turning when he drained the blood from her in a delirious agony and offered up his own to save her.

 

_You shouldn't feel beholden to me_ , he says the next morning, voice characteristically tight, as he stands by the window of her bedroom, arms folded behind him. She mocks him sometimes for the affectations he has brought with him from ages past - the poses and turns of phrase - but he is too raw now for her to tease him.

_Stannis_ , she says softly, _I am beholden to you, but that isn't why I want you, or love you_.

He sniffs, he is uncomfortable, she knows, with being loved.

_I should be the one apologising, for keeping you from your duties,_ she adds.

_My duties_ , he says, turning around now, his movements as economical, rigid, as ever, his face harsh, his scorn turned inwards.

_You can still return to King's Landing, return to your watch there_ , she says.

It will take a generation before she can show her face in King's Landing again, before everyone there forgets her particular shade of red hair, her blue eyes, but no one there knows Stannis, for he had been accomplished at keeping to the shadows.

And yet she had still caught sight of him.

It was his stillness that she had noticed first, that, and the way his eyes were fixed on her.

He's never told her why he was watching her in the first place, but she knows that he would say it was because she was a person of interest, a player in the crown's affairs, which is surely a lie for there were far more important people than she at court.

It is immensely flattering that he was drawn to her, that he broke all his rules for her, and it makes up for the fact that he does not pay her any compliments, that he does not tell her she is beautiful or that he loves her.

At least, not out loud.

_There has been enough for me to do here_ , he says. _Enough failures_.

He has appointed himself judge, jury, and executioner of his kind, and he is unforgiving of those who kill, even if those who are killed are the very worst of humans.

It is not our right to make the choice, to take a life, he tells her, hypocritically, for he has already in her second lifetime, taken at least three vampire lives, two for their crimes against the world of men, and one for attempting to take _her_.

She thought he might give in then, in the aftermath of the violence he wrought on that wily vampire that had seduced her with soft words and feigned understanding before he revealed his true wickedness, she thought Stannis might kiss her then, hold her, but he didn't, he locked himself in his room at the top of the east tower of his estate, and when she went to the fridge for blood that evening she found it almost empty.

It had been hard to sleep that night, thinking of him up there, brooding, gorging himself on pig's blood when her blood was right here for the taking.

But it's better this way, she thinks, feeling a thrill of such happiness she fears she will smile like a madwoman, it's better for him to give in of his own accord.

_So I suppose you will be patrolling this morning_ , she says, kneeling up on the bed, watching as his lips part with hunger at her nakedness. _No honeymoon for you_.

He scoffs but there is a twinkle of mirth in his eye.

She lets her eyes rake down his clothed body, feels an answering twitch in her thighs that he, his eyes honed like those of a predator's, sees.

_Crimes by our kind are rarely committed during daylight_ , he says, with a chiding tone that thrills her.

He is not only sour and dry and stubborn, he can, when he wishes, be dryly funny, be tender and soulful.

_So I may have your days_ , she says, as he draws near the bed and strokes his hand through her hair and down to touch her shoulder, her arm, with a featherlight touch, _and they may have your nights?_

He leans closer, his smell, of ink and leather and musk, envelops her. _You shall have every day and every night_ , he whispers gruffly, his lips brushing against her ear, and then he pushes her back on the bed and kisses her, desperately, hungrily, as her nails bite into the skin of his back and she moans and widens her hips, welcoming him in.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> please comment, I'd love to hear what people think!
> 
> my tumblr: [framboise-fics](http://framboise-fics.tumblr.com)
> 
> and there's a rebloggable photoset for this fic [here](https://framboise-fics.tumblr.com/post/178440542657/he-has-two-rules-never-to-taste-human-blood)


End file.
